New Trash Incineration Rules in Sao Paulo State

摘要

In Brazil's Sao Paulo state, a company wanting a preliminary environmental license for an electricity-generating trash incinerator must now submit a health risk assessment. Two companies have submitted requests for licenses using a health risk assessment based on the criteria since the measure's release, Alfredo Rocca, manager of the Department of Environmental Evaluation of Systems and Projects at Cetesb, the State Environmental Secretariat's enforcement and licensing arm, told Bloomberg BNA April 7. Standardized health risk assessments are necessary because electricity-generating incinerators "emit highly toxic and carcinogenic dioxins and furans," said Rocca. Issued Feb. 10, the Cetesb measure covers energy recovery units (ERUs), incinerators with the capacity to burn up to 600 metric tons a day of residential waste. In Sao Paulo state, third-party companies outsourced by large municipalities to dispose of residential waste for the first time plan to install ERUs in areas where there is little municipal land for sanitary landfills.